Catholic League President calls Air Force investigation bigoted, biased

, Jun 29, 2005 / 12:00 am (CNA).- In a letter written last week to members of the House Armed Forces Military Personnel Subcommittee, which met yesterday to discuss the controversy over religious climate at the U.S. Air Force Academy, Catholic League President Bill Donahue called charges of Christian favoritism unfounded and biased.

A report released on June 22nd, concluded an investigation into the religious climate of the Academy following numerous reports of discrimination against non-Christians.

The investigation found that while their were no signs of malicious intent on the whole, an atmosphere of Christian favoritism did exist.

Donahue wrote that, “What I found most disturbing is what the media are not reporting: the fact that the most-often cited examples of bias against non-Christians do not constitute bias at all; the fact that the Academy now risks becoming a place that is inhospitable to religious expression; and the fact that many Christian cadets and officers believe that an anti-Christian environment now exists.“

Among other examples, he noted that “the [investigators] objected to a Protestant minister at a Protestant service asking Protestant cadets to chant, ‘This is our chapel and the Lord is our God,’ proves beyond a doubt the rank bigotry of this group.”

“To make such a charge”, he said, “fully discredits anything these individuals have to say about any alleged religious bias.”

Donahue, who was honorably discharged from the Air Force in 1970, asked the members of the subcommittee not to be “bullied by those who would have you believe that the Air Force Academy is in need of drastic reform.”